pregnant, right?”
“Yeah. How did you know?” Did everyone know but him?
“Keely told me.” Keely was Daniel’s wife.
“How did Keely know?”
“She hung out a little with Karin at Madison and Sten’s wedding. According to Keely, Karin was noticeably pregnant then—but you missed the wedding, right?”
“Right.” He’d felt bad to miss it, but he’d had a work conflict in Portland, one he couldn’t put off or get out of.
Liam owned Bravo Trucking, which he’d built up from a few rigs that hauled strictly for Valentine Logging into a fleet with over two hundred trucks and two hundred fifty employees. His original terminal was nearby, right there in Warrenton. Last year, he’d opened one in Portland, too.
Daniel was leaning forward again. “Are you saying the baby is yours?”
“Yeah.” The word scraped his throat as he said it. “Karin says she’s been trying for months to work up the nerve to tell me. I probably still wouldn’t know if I hadn’t seen her coming out of Safeway a couple of hours ago.” And he had that feeling again, like if he sat still, he might just lose his mind. So he jumped up, paced to the door and then paced back again.
Daniel said, “You never mentioned you were dating Karin.”
“Dating?” He stopped by Daniel’s chair. “I wouldn’t call it dating. It was only a few times, whenever she could get away. She wanted it kept just between the two of us. I agreed it would be the way she wanted it and I never told anyone else that we were hooking up.”
“Liam,” Daniel said quietly. “Sit back down. Come on, man. It’s all going to work out.”
He dropped to the couch again. “I guess I’m kind of in shock.”
Daniel got up. “Scotch or water?”
Liam braced his elbows on his spread knees and put his head in his hands. “Neither. Both.” Dropping his hands from his face, he flopped back against the cushions and stared up at the ceiling.
Daniel asked, “Didn’t you and Karin date in high school?”
“Briefly.” Liam shut his eyes. “I always thought Karin was cute, you know? Senior year, she asked me to a Sadie Hawkins dance. We had a great time. I took her out to a show a couple of weeks later. But when she started hinting that she wanted to be exclusive with me, I told her what I told all the girls, that I didn’t do virgins and I wasn’t getting serious with anyone. Ever.”
“Classy,” remarked Daniel wryly. “And I’m guessing that was it for you and Karin in high school.”
Liam let out a grunt in the affirmative. “When we met up last December, it was so great to reconnect with her. She’s smart. She takes zero crap, you know? A guy can’t get ahead of her. Better-looking than ever, too, with those gorgeous eyes that look blue at first glance but are actually swirled with green and gray. Plus, she has all that wild, dark hair. And her attitude is seriously snarky. She’s fun.” He couldn’t help recalling the shock and guilt on her face when he’d stopped her at Safeway. “Not so snarky today, though. She really felt bad, that she’d waited so long to tell me...”
“Here you go.”
Liam opened his eyes. Daniel stood over him, a bottle of water in one hand, a glass with two fingers of amber liquid in the other. “Thanks.” Liam set down the glass on the side table and took a long drink from the water bottle. “I should go.” He drank the rest of the water and set the empty bottle by the untouched glass of Scotch.
“Hold on,” said Daniel. “I thought you said you needed to talk.”
“I did talk.” He rose and clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Thanks for listening.”
Liam’s new house in Astoria was four thousand square feet and overlooked the Columbia River. He’d had a decorator in to furnish it in a sleek, modern style, lots of geometric patterns and oxidized oak, pops of deep color here and there.
As a rule, coming home made him feel pretty good about everything. He had a thriving business, a fat bank account and a gorgeous house. By just about any standards, he’d made a success of his life so far.
Today, though, a big house and money in the bank didn’t feel all that satisfying. He was going to be a dad. Just like that. Out of the blue—at least, that was how it felt to him.
Karin had kept saying that he didn’t have to do anything right now.
Wrong.
He needed to do something. He just didn’t really know what.
Maybe he should call Deke Pasternak. Deke was in family law. A little legal advice couldn’t hurt about now, could it?
The lawyer answered on the second ring. “Hey. Liam. Good to hear from you. How’ve you been?”
“I just found out I’m going to be a father. Baby’s due in a week.”
Usually a fast talker, Deke took several seconds to reply. “Well. Congratulations?” He said it with a definite question mark at the end.
Two could play that game. “Thanks?”
“So... You want to meet for a drink or something?”
“How about a phone consultation?”
Five slow beats of complete silence, after which Deke asked, “You okay, man?”
“I’m working on it. Just bill me for this call and tell me what you think.”
Deke did some throat-clearing. “What I think?”
“Yeah.”
“About your being a dad?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you asking as a friend or do you want my legal opinion?”
“You’re billing me, aren’t you?”
“Uh, sure. So this isn’t anyone you were dating seriously, then?”
Liam thought of Karin again, standing there by the sliding glass door in her brother’s empty kitchen, looking miserable. “Why does that matter?”
“Let me put it this way, how did you find out that the baby’s yours?”
“She told me.”
“Ah. Right there. That could be a problem.”
“Well, she should have told me sooner, yeah. She admitted that.”
“No, Liam. What I mean is, what she told you proves nothing.”
“She’s seriously pregnant, man. I saw her
